The International Centre for
Trade & Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and the Quaker UN
Office (QUNO) facilitated a dialogue between IP experts and
developing country negotiators. The dialogue provided an opportunity
for participants at the WTO-WIPO Colloquium for Teachers of
Intellectual Property to meet informally with the Geneva-based
community working on intellectual property issues.

Each year, the WTO and WIPO provide a two-week in-depth Colloquium
for around 20 selected experts teaching in the field of intellectual
property, predominantly from universities in developing countries.
The experts are given an intensive programme in the WTO and
WIPO on current issues and the state of negotiations, but the
informal dialogue hosted by ICTSD and QUNO is their key opportunity
to meet with national counterparts and discuss how negotiations
are shaped in Geneva and beyond.

The purpose of the dialogue is so that academic
stakeholders, who will influence IP policymakers to come, can
discuss informally the national positions being adopted by countries
in the TRIPS Council and WIPO with those involved in negotiations
on intellectual property in Geneva. It aims to broker a different
kind of information about the political economy of IP at the
international level.